“Oblivion” may not live up fully to its grand ambitions, but it isn’t for lack of trying.

The film, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Joseph Kosinski, dips its toe into all manner of science-fiction waters. (It’s much better than Kosinski’s last film, “TRON: Legacy.”) The story probably doesn’t stand up to heavy scrutiny, and at times the effort by star and director shows.

But at least the effort is there. The film is beautiful to look at. You can check off most of your go-to sci-fi elements here: a post-apocalyptic, dystopian future; aliens; memory wipes; outlying rebels; the aforementioned Tom Cruise. Some are used more effectively than others, including Cruise. The puzzlements will be explained by the end, but as is often the case, the fun is in the getting there.

The movie is set in 2077. In a voiceover, Jack Harper (Cruise) explains that 60 years ago aliens destroyed Earth’s moon, throwing everything out of whack. Natural disasters wrecked the planet. Then the aliens, called Scavengers, or Scavs for short, invaded. Humans were able to win the war, but had to resort to nuclear weapons, ruining what was left of Earth.

So the human race moved to Titan, a moon of Saturn. Jack and his partner Vika (Andrea Riseborough) live high above the ruins in a Spartan-chic, airy home. They’re the “mop-up” crew, as Jack calls them.

Every day he takes his helicopter-plane hybrid down to the surface to repair the drones that guard against the remaining Scavs, who try to disrupt the water-extraction project that is essential to human survival. Vika tracks him and reports on their efforts to her boss (Melissa Leo), whose Southern accent drips with disingenuous charm.

It sounds like a pleasant-enough existence, but they only have two weeks left on their shift. Vika can’t wait to head for Titan, but Jack isn’t so sure. He is haunted in his dreams by visions of pre-war New York, where he stands on the Empire State Building’s observation tower with a beautiful woman (Olga Kurylenko).

He’s also carved out little bits of Earthly nostalgia wherever he can, though to reveal more, beyond the Yankees cap he wears while he’s fixing drones, would be a mistake. It is fair to say, however, that some little touches, like a record-player needle dropping on a vinyl album, are surprisingly agreeable.

Of course, not all of this is what it seems. Jack will eventually come into contact with a man named Beech (Morgan Freeman). That, along with Jack’s rescue of a familiar looking survivor of a spacecraft crash, will make Jack question the truth about his existence even more.

This just scratches the surface of the twisty tale. You will see most of the surprises coming, but one in particular is effective and moving.

Cruise is in likable action-hero mode, which means that Jack is, well, likable and heroic, in an action-packed kind of way. (Cruise bugs people for some reason; I suspect it has more to do with his off-camera persona than what we see on-screen. If nothing else, his characters are entertaining to spend a couple of hours with, and Jack is no exception.)

Freeman’s not in the movie much. It mostly falls to him to explain a few hard truths to Jack. And when they’re explained in that voice-of-God delivery of Morgan’s, well, you can’t doubt him for long.

In some ways Riseborough’s Vika is the most-intriguing character in the movie. She’s officious, so by-the-book you wonder whether she is simply trying not to blow her assignment with so little time left, or up to something more.

None of this works without Kosinski, who aims big. Leo’s supervisor repeats a question to Vika throughout the film, asking about Vika and Jack’s success. “Are you an effective team?”

“Oblivion” doesn’t rise to the level of movies like “2001: A Space Odyssey” or even “WALL-E,” just two of many by which Kosinski is so obviously influenced. But are Kosinski and Cruise an effective team? As Vika might way, definitely.

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